HipPops ice cream truck finds its sweet niche

Two decades in the retail business and a lifetime of memories chasing the ice cream truck has helped Anthony Fellows put together a nice little business for himself these days.

Fellows owns HipPOPs, fuchsia-and-blue ice cream truck from which he serves more than 100 flavors of sorbets, frozen yogurt and gelato to a growing fan base at locations throughout South Florida.

Through the years, he's learned a few things. Such as:

• Hundreds of flavors beat thirty-something.

• Facebook and Twitter have a much further reach than a truck speaker.

• Selling ice cream always has been — and always will be — a fun business.

"Everyone loves ice cream. It's just a happy business," Fellows said.

For years, Fellows worked at ice cream stores inside malls. He worked at a Baskin-Robbins as a teenager and later opened a small ice cream and frozen yogurt store in Pompano Beach. He also expanded the Edy's and Dreyer's brands to shops within malls, Fellows said.

But high rents made it difficult to be profitable within malls. Time constraints dictated by mall hours also were difficult. So he began researching a way out of brick and mortar locales. He noticed the momentum food trucks had in South Florida.

"That's when the wheels started turning," he said.

Literally, and figuratively.

HipPOPs now employs four people, two "popologists" — they're the ones making the ice cream at the Dania Beach micro creamery —and two "pop stars,'' the ones selling the ice cream from the truck.

Business is good. Sales in the first year were about $175,000, 27 percent more than what he had projected, Fellows said. Sales for the first quarter of this year were up 22 percent compared to same quarter last year, he added.

The truck parks itself at street festivals and outside office buildings to sell its treats, which range in price from $3 to$5 depending on toppings and dips. Taking full advantage of social media — they have about 20,000 followers — HipPOPs keeps an updated "Where We Are'' calendar with times and locations. Private events are scheduled as well.

Fellows loves the flexibility.

"I get to choose where I want to go, and who I want to be in business with,'' the 46-year-old said. Not handcuffed by mall hours, he said he enjoys being able to spend more time with his family.

Weather can be an issue — "we follow AccuWeather the way people on Wall Street follow the stock market," he said — but they try to make up for bad days by scheduling more birthday parties, fundraisers and special events. They are always well-received.